


Choreography

by mylittlecthulhu (marineko)



Category: Arashi (Band), Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: AU, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-25
Updated: 2010-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-23 02:38:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marineko/pseuds/mylittlecthulhu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jun gets a strange birthday present from Nino.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choreography

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arashic0804](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=arashic0804).



> Inspired by "Footsteps" by Pocketbooks

> You had me when I saw your shoes   
> Or trainers, if truth be told   
> You had my heart the day I heard your footsteps near me  
> \- "Footsteps" by Pocketbooks

AUGUST

Aiba trudged down the stairs of his apartment, suppressing a yawn. Another Monday morning, he thought. Another day of dullness and drudgery. The mosaic on the walls as he walked down remained unnoticed as he concentrated on putting his feet forward, step after half-hearted step. He listened to the sound of his feet shuffling on the way to work and he thought to himself,  _this is the most boring sound in the world._

He worked in a small store selling gag gifts just three floors down, so he didn’t have a long commute to worry about, but that fact didn’t make him feel any better.

It didn’t help that his two best friends, who were on the same shift that day, were suspiciously perky that morning. He narrowed his eyes at Sho’s wide smile as Nino unlocked the back door to the store. 

“Good morning.” Sho was practically singing. Aiba could take a guess that he and Nino had a very good weekend, but he would rather not know. 

It didn’t mean that he couldn’t tease Nino about it, though.

})i({

Jun felt at lost, looking at the plethora of objects surrounding him, ranging from the macabre to the funny to the plain ridiculous.  _Why am I here, anyway?_  he wondered, and then he remembered.

He had received a gift voucher for his birthday, and he wasn’t about to let three thousand yen go to waste. Perhaps it wasn’t a large amount, especially when compared to the fishing equipment Ohno-senpai had given him (that he would probably only use once, and store away), but Nino would kill him if he wasted money of any kind.

And a store voucher was definitely money.

He looked at his voucher again, and sighed. He had received it in a pink envelope with pretty, swirly writing over it.  _Love from Kazunari, Kazuya, and -_  The last bit was written in an illegible scrawl, but Jun thought that it was probably Junnosuke, and that he had signed it under duress. Nino and Kame had a way of dragging him into doing things. _Things like coughing up one-third of my birthday gift._

It wasn’t like he even wanted a gift. Not when it was from some stupid gag store, anyway. But he knew that his friends loved him in their own way, so he was appreciative.

He still had the offensive pink envelope in his hands when he noticed a pair of red sneakers before him. He didn’t know why, but for some reason he thought that those were the most perfect pair of shoes he had ever seen.

“Can I help you?”

Jun looked up, and he held his breath for one brief moment as he realised that the most perfect pair of shoes belonged to someone else, and that someone else had a mischievous glint to his eye that Jun wasn’t entirely sure was appropriate for someone trying to sell him something. “My friend gave me a voucher to spend here and I’m not sure what to get... do you have any recommendations?”

Aiba frowned. “You must be thinking of a different store. We don’t have vouchers.”

“Yes, you do. It has the store name on it,” Jun said, waving the envelope at Aiba, even as he was thinking that it wasn’t worth the effort, and that he should just leave.

“Lemme see that.” Aiba grabbed the envelope from Jun’s hand, and opened the envelope to see the voucher. “Hmm. It definitely has our store name on it, but we really don’t have vouchers.” He flipped the envelope around, and Jun saw the recognition in his eyes as he read the names. Aiba looked at the voucher again, studying the serial number on it. Jun had wondered about the serial number - it was too long and included strange characters. “ _Nino!_ ” Aiba called out in exasperation. “I am  _not_  a birthday present.”

Jun thought he heard laughter from the back of the store, but he wasn’t sure. And the person before him wasn’t making any sense. “Maybe I should come back...”  _Or better yet, maybe I should leave and never return._

“Wait,” Aiba said, laying a hand on Jun’s arm. “Let me explain. You see, we really don’t have any store vouchers. Nino -” he said, turning to glare in the direction where the laughter had come from - “ _made_  this. See the serial number? This is actually a code that we came up with when we were kids.”

“What did it say?” Jun was more surprised with the fact that he wasn’t surprised that Nino pulled such a trick, than he was with the trick itself. It was just like Nino, he supposed, to do something like make a fake voucher from the store he worked at.

Aiba seemed awkward as he said, “‘Happy birthday, Jun. You get Aiba for a day.’”

“Oh.” Jun paused. “I’m guessing that you’re Aiba?”

“That’s me.”

They both looked at each other self-consciously, entertaining the thought of being with the other for a second, before breaking into laughter. “What was the guy thinking of?” Jun asked.

“Just because he’s completely whipped, he wants others to be, too,” Aiba said, grinning as a loud sound of protest came from behind them.

The two of them chatted, about how they knew Nino, about the weather, about the things that they loved to distraction (dance and good food and vintage clothing for Jun, music and ‘nothing, just being outdoors’ for Aiba) and about the things they couldn’t stand but loved anyway (Nino, for both of them). 

When he realised that he was lingering without the intention of purchasing anything, Jun reluctantly made his excuses and headed towards the door. Aiba listened to Jun’s receding footsteps and wondered why it was a sad sound. “Wait,” he called out.

Jun was already at the door. “What?”

“I still owe you a date, don’t I?”

})i({

Nino was pissed at having to work extra to cover for Aiba, but it was his fault anyway, with his stupid ‘you get Aiba for a day’ gift. Aiba was gleeful to be out, and as the two of them walked down the streets he kept humming to himself.

“What’s that tune that you’re humming?”

“Hmm? Oh, it’s nothing in particular. The sound of the city. Couldn’t you hear it?”

Aiba pulled Jun to a stop, and made Jun close his eyes to listen. The rumble of the cars passing by, the tinkling of bells as people went in and out of the shops near them, the laughter of the group of girls walking ahead of them. He wondered what else Aiba heard. “You turn this all into songs?”

“Everything is material,” Aiba said, and there was that hint of mischief in his eyes again as he grinned. “Even you.”

“I don’t see how I’m material,” Jun said, intrigued.

Taking Jun’s hand, Aiba tugged, indicating that they should continue walking. “Hear that?” he asked.

There is a lightness in his chest that he hadn’t felt before, but he didn’t know what he was supposed to be hearing. “What?”

“The sound of our footsteps. There are two of us, but we sound like one person. This is a song that only we could dance to. That’s how I know that I’m going to keep you.”

Jun didn’t ask Aiba if he intended to give Jun a choice in the matter. As they continued down the path to where they were going, Jun thought he heard fragments of a song in him, and he wondered if Aiba would recognise it if he danced to it.

})i({

OCTOBER

“You know,” Nino complained, “I only gave you Aiba for a  _day_.”

“Too bad,” Jun replied. “He’s of the non-exchangeable or returnable type.” Jun pushed away Nino’s feet off his lap, but Nino just adjusted himself and settled back to where he had been, lying on the couch with his head on Sho’s lap, and his feet on Jun’s.

“Well, as long as you get that, it’s okay, I guess.” He grinned up at Sho. “At least I still have you.”

“Until you decide to give me away to your other sad and lonely friends,” Sho joked. “Sit up properly; there’s no space for Aiba as it is.”

“Who’s sad and lonely?” Aiba called out from his kitchen. He had had his headphones on and was whistling to himself - loudly - and still heard their conversation. 

“No one,” the other three said in unison.

“Uh huh,” Aiba replied, not believing any of them.

“That reminds me,” Jun said, changing the subject before Aiba pursued it, “didn’t you want to ask Ohno-senpai over as well?”

“I did, but he said he’s got something he’d rather do,” Nino said incredulously, as if it was incomprehensible that there was anything better to do than be in his company. 

“Now that you mention it, I think he’s supposed to rehearse for a show he’s doing,” Jun said, pushing Nino’s feet away again.   
“Big deal. I’m in that show, and you don’t see me rehearsing,” Nino retorted. He contemplated putting his feet back up, but changed his mind and shifted to sit upright as Aiba walked in.

“Someone help me in the kitchen, please?” he asked. 

Nino stretched comfortably on the couch as both Sho and Jun stood up to help Aiba. He watched Aiba instructing them on what to do, and grinned when Aiba tasked Sho to do the least destructive thing he could find - cleaning up after the mess the kitchen had turned to after Aiba’s culinary experiments. Nino’s attention then turned to Jun, who was listening attentively to Aiba’s words. As they worked together Nino thought that there is something about the way the two stepped around each other, like they were moving to a beat that only they could hear.

 _I did well_ , he thought smugly. 

})i({

FEBRUARY

Jun couldn’t stand Aiba’s kitchen. It is possibly the messiest, dirtiest kitchen Jun had ever worked in. Of course, Jun’s standards was very high to begin with, so Aiba’s kitchen probably wasn’t that bad to others. But Jun hated the clutter, the wet dishrags lying all over the counters, and the way all the different bottles and containers would be scattered throughout the entire kitchen when Aiba was coming up with something.

Jun wasn’t even sure if he could call what Aiba did as ‘cooking’, although he had no reason to complain when it came to how the food tasted.

“Aiba, what are you doing this time?” Jun asked in exasperation as he came over to find Aiba’s kitchen looking like something had exploded in it.

“Go and wait for me outside, I don’t want to ruin this,” Aiba called out, but Jun had already walked into the kitchen and looking around. Jun took in his surroundings calmly, telling himself to count to ten so that he wouldn’t emulate the kitchen and explode himself, but he figured out what Aiba had been doing soon enough.

“Were you trying to make chocolate?” he asked, feeling oddly touched and irritated at the same time. If Aiba had any sense he would have just bought something from a store, but the fact that he actually made something overwhelmed Jun.

“Yeah,” Aiba said sheepishly. “Didn’t work out as well as I thought. But... happy Valentines.”

Aiba’s kitchen was cluttered and a nightmare to Jun, but amidst all that Jun thought that he would have to learn to get used to it, because there are fragments of the song between them hidden in its imperfections.

})i({

MAY

As a boyfriend, Jun was probably boring, Aiba thought. At least, that was what he would have thought, if he was more objective. After all, only Jun could spend hours on end selecting clothes - and not even new ones.

“Can’t we at least go to the new mall?” Aiba asked, taking out the vintage tee on a rack and making a face at it.

“That shirt’s nice - you should get it,” Jun said, ignoring his question. Jun was in his element. He was meticulous about everything, which Aiba found rather endearing sometimes, but after a few hours of standing around in a musky-smelling store selling retro clothing, endearing soon became irritating.

As if just noticing his change of mood, Jun put back the items he was holding on the rack, and turned to Aiba. “You want to leave? I come here every other week, anyway.”

Aiba’s irritation immediately disappeared as Jun smiled and took his hand, leading him out of the store. 

“This is better,” Aiba said, after they had been walking for several minutes.

“What is?”

“Walking.” Grinning at Jun’s confused look, Aiba explained, “the small moments when things jar and go off tune doesn’t matter, not when we immediately get back in sync the way we do.”

})i({

AUGUST

Aiba couldn’t believe that it had been a year. He stood in the wings of the dimly lit theatre, watching Jun warm up before rehearsal. Jun never wanted him to come to his shows, because he was too shy about Aiba watching him dance, but Aiba wanted to surprise Jun that day.

It was Jun’s birthday, and he wanted to take Jun out. He was even wearing the shirt he had bought a few months ago, that Jun said he liked.

Aiba was thinking of a whole year of being with Jun, and how he hadn’t even expected - or asked for - it, and how it had happened anyway. What was it about Jun that was so special, he wondered, when Jun straightened up, and moved across the stage in a dance that made Aiba hold his breath.

There was no music on, but Aiba could hear the sound clearly in his head. He had been writing the song on and off throughout the past year, wondering how he would finish it, if it would ever be finished. 

Jun was dancing to their song.

})i({

“You didn’t have to do this,” Jun said again, as they sat for dinner, which Aiba had spend the whole day making. Jun hadn’t gone to the kitchen yet, but he could already imagine the mess it must be in.

“I wanted to,” Aiba said simply. “It’s not just your birthday - it’s our anniversary, too, isn’t it?”

“Hmm.” Jun didn’t know how he felt about the fact that Aiba had seen him dance. He wished that Aiba would say something about it, instead of waiting for him to bring the subject up. “What’s this?” he asked, seeing a familiar, repulsively pink envelope next to his plate.

“Oh. I’m not sure, actually. Nino asked me to give it to you. Said it’s your birthday present.”

“I’ve had it up to here with his so-called presents...” Jun muttered under his breath, as he picked the envelope up to check his contents. Instead of taking offense, Aiba just rolled his eyes. He grinned at Aiba to show that he didn’t mean his words, and opened the envelope. As he pulled out the familiar looking voucher, his grin faded.

“What is it?”

Jun had since learned to read Aiba and Nino’s secret code, and understood the message in the serial number. He gave the voucher to Aiba. “Here.”

“‘Happy birthday. You get Aiba, for always.’” Aiba laughed. “I’m not his to give away, you know.”

“I know.” Jun looked into Aiba’s eyes. “Can I keep you, anyway?”

“Well, that depends,” Aiba replied solemnly. “Will you promise that you’ll always stay in step with me, and hear the same song?”  
})i({

APRIL

Aiba loved the sound of his footsteps, walking in sync with Jun’s. He had known it since the first walk they took together, but there had always been a part of him that thought it might have been a fluke. After passing by the seasons next to each other, though, Aiba’s feelings only became stronger.

“Can you hear it?” he asked, although he already knew the answer.

“There are two of us, but only a single set of footsteps,” Jun replied. “Yes, I can hear it.”

As they continued down the path ahead of them, Aiba found himself wishing that he would always be able to hear Jun’s footsteps with him.


End file.
